The Rules of Engagement

"An engagement ring is not essential to becoming engaged."
--Emily Post

I need to talk to y'all about something very serious: pre-engagement. What is this? I recently had a friend tell me that a friend of hers was planning a wedding for next summer. "Oh, I didn't even know X was engaged," I commented. "How wonderful."
"Well X isn't engaged," said my friend. "But she and her beau have set a date. They're sort of pre-engaged."
"Oh," was my response. But what I was really thinking was "Yeah, I think that's made up."

Of course, I never say this because I always think things are made up and they often turn out not to be, so I try to save myself a grovel when I can. I do put quite a bit of stock in Ms. Post, however, and it appears she agrees with me, as does Matt who says "either you is or you ain't."

You may not know that Matt and I did not exchange rings when we became engaged. We were out for oysters at one of of our favorite places---Gilhooley's in San Leon having a sort of picnic. It was a full moon and we decided together that getting married sounded like one of the best ideas we'd heard of. Then we sealed the deal with a high five. And it was at that point, when we agreed to marry one another that we were engaged. (A couple weeks later, Matt and I went to his machine shop, where he fine-tuned beautiful titanium bands carved out of a racecar axle!) So the point I'm getting to is this: if you've got a date set already *because* you've already agreed to marry each other, then you're engaged. You're there and then some. You've arrived with your bags packed. Good job, team.

But this pre-engagement thing has become very popular with people who feel the diamond (or cubic zirconia or even heart-shaped peridot, if you will) is all. In fact, when we started planning the wedding, I visited the wretched, evil, horrible web site The Knot which puts all kinds of pressure and judges you tremendously without actually knowing you or interacting with you. Blech. I spit on you The Knot! Anyway, to sign up, the evil knot asks you at what stage you are of planning. And you can't just check engaged. Your options are "single; just loooking" and "ring on my/her finger and finally ready to go," or something similarly asinine.

Does The Knot think it knows better than EMILY POST? Well, let me tell you--The Knot--you just better step off or I will throw my pre-engagement ring at you. Or something equally devastating. That's right.

Wish you were here (to boycott The Knot with me!),
Wed Dog